The Philharmonie or the Lightness of Democracy Wilfried Wang Rising from the shadows of the past At the top of the Philharmonie's roof is a sculpture entitled Phoenix by Hans Uhlmann (1900- 1975). It appears to be emerging from an undulating envelope. Hans Scharoun (1893-1972) designed this envelope in a quasi-textile, tent-like manner, whereas its structural frame consists of cast in-situ reinforced concrete walls and steel trusses. The winged figure of Uhlmann's Phoenix symbolically rises from the ashes of the Nazi past. 1 Uhlmann had remained in Germany during World War II despite his political opposition to the Nazi regime and the compromised life that resulted from his resistance. Scharoun too had worked as an architect in Germany during World War II, realising some houses that on the exterior superficially conformed to the Nazi building codes, while containing more open spatial sequences on the interior. The work on these few small houses was augmented by many sketches and watercolours, a number of which show dauntingly heavy monumental syntheses of landforms and architecture, whereas others celebrate an idealised lightness. Some of these large-scale fantasies predate the flowing forms of international architectural designs of the early 21st century. During the last years of the war, Scharoun was charged to clear bomb damage. At the same time, Scharoun and a number of his colleagues were already thinking about town planning design principles and architecture they wanted to use after the war. Scharoun's Planungskollektiv was then commissioned by the newly installed, post-war Berlin magistrate in 1945 to undertake a structural plan for the war-ravaged city, laying the strategic ground rules that were to shape Berlin for the next decades. The structural plan for Berlin and the new home of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra were elements at the extreme ends of Scharoun's design thinking. Both required significant political support by individuals and organisations that were ready to construct a new democratic culture. In this context, the superimposition of a grid of roads on Berlin as suggested in the structural plan by the Planungskollektiv of 1946 is as diametrically opposed to the Nazi's axial planning as the Philharmonie's tent-like exterior --with its drooping skyline and its overhanging golden aluminum panel-clad walls, suggestive of a festive lightness-- is opposed to the weighty permanence sought by the projects that were intended for this site only a dozen years earlier. Only a very small section was built of Albert Speer's (1905-1981) proposal for the Welthauptstadt Germania (1937-43, World Capital Germania), the newly shaped capital of the Großdeutsches Reich, designed to extend along Berlin's north-south axis for 25 miles and implying the enforced "rehousing" of between 150,000 to 200,000 residents in 52,144 apartments, including 1 Uhlmann was imprisoned for 18 months in 1935 for distributing anti-fascist leaflets. members of the Jewish population (between 15,000 and 18,000 of their apartments were requisitioned from 1938 onwards; the residents were deported). To this small section belonged the Haus des Fremdenverkehrs [House of Tourism (1938-1942, incomplete, demolished 1964) by Theodor Dierksmeier], which remained standing a few yards to the southeast of the Philharmonie for one year after the latter's inauguration, reminding the post-–World War II public of the Nazis’ megalomaniac plans and destructive consequences. The co-existence of these two buildings for one year was only a brief moment in the long post–World War II process of democratisation. A few hundred steps north of the newly designated Kulturforum (Cultural Forum), which was conceived from 1959 to 1964 by Scharoun parallel to the design development and construction of the Philharmonie, a gigantic domed hall for 180,000 people was to have been built. In 1937 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) had instructed Albert Speer to design the 290 m (950 ft) tall building.2 The synchronisation of such a large number of people into an undifferentiated single mass within a neoclassical building served as a daunting foil against which post–World War II architects reacted; in contrast, Scharoun's auditorium for 2,440 people is structured into 23 groups of seats, each numbering around 128, the size of the full Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Audience groups and orchestra are thus placed in a commensurate relationship. Moreover, rather than being focused on a single point as in neoclassical space conceptions, Scharoun was interested in notions of modern space with multi-faceted and multi-focal performances. Scharoun's interest in multi-faceted perception can be seen as a corollary to multi-faceted Cubist painting. Perambulatory circulation The entrance to the Philharmonie is located to the west of the building's main volume; once in the auditorium, visitors notice its asymmetric placement. Scharoun deliberately chose to offset the entrance from the auditorium's axis of symmetry so as to enhance the sense of excitement so often associated with a concert visit. The polygonal geometry of both the exterior and the interior gives few clues regarding the direction of movement. Signs with small capital letters referring to the groups of seats are admittedly not very visible. First- time visitors, especially, remain confused. Flights of steps can be seen to the right of the ticket collectors' line; they take members of the audience who have seats on the right side of the concert hall to the mezzanine level with the coat facilities and further sets of stairs. Audience members sitting on the left pass by their coat facilities and move through the large foyer with its various columns, pillars, walls and circular stairs before they reach their flights of steps on the east side of the building. The visual impressions gained from the long views, unusual spaces and non-orthogonal alignments of circulation elements are varied, if not completely unrelated to the axial planning of the Nazi period just over a decade earlier. 2 The project was never realized; however, numerous studies were undertaken as to its feasibility, including several tests on the construction of foundations. In this connection, Speer had been personally in charge of ensuring the supply of quarried stone, for which forced labor was used. The Nazis’ selection of sites for the concentration camps close to quarries was also made with the supply of stone in mind. 2 Members of the audience may not easily find the next flight of stairs. However, as one moves upward, the range of options is reduced, the path becomes more evident, and the goal of the auditorium is within sight. The view through the vomitoria is tantalising; one senses the enormous volume of the hall beyond via the fragments of echoes emerging from the auditorium. And then comes the moment of entry: at any one of these points is one of the most exciting synesthetic experiences that modern architecture offers. This passage from one cavernous space – the foyer – to another is entirely without precedent. Importantly, while traveling the route from the street to the auditorium can be extensive and confusing, leaving it is self-evident and fast. During intervals and at the end of concerts, the hall empties within two to three minutes. One may wonder why leaving is so easy. The answer is as obvious as the flow of water down a valley: the next flight of stairs is always within one's cone of vision. Beyond the internal circulation, the Philharmonie is directly connected to its two neighbouring buildings: the Chamber Music Hall to the south and the Music Instrument Museum to the north. On a few occasions, the three buildings host simultaneous musical performances in the auditoria as well as in ad-hoc spaces. In urban design terms, however, the entire complex of the Kulturforum remains dislocated from its current larger fabric. Following German reunification in 1990, two areas to the east of the Kulturforum, Potsdamer Platz (Hilmer und Sattler, competition entry of 1991, 1993-98) and the Sony Centre (Helmut Jahn, competition 1996, 1998-2000), were realised. Neither large urban development was able to create credible connections with the eastern sides of the Music Instrument Museum and the State Library (Hans Scharoun, competition 1963, 1967-1978). Moreover, Scharoun's master plan for the Kulturforum was never completed; in fact, following his death in 1972, successive decisions were made against the realisation of the centrally located Guest House (Hans Scharoun, projects of 1964 and 1967), thereby leaving an undefined expanse at the core of the forum. Thus the Philharmonie, together with its two connected neighbours, remains an island in a sea of islands, a characteristic quality of this larger stretch south of the Tiergarten. As a result of this island condition, the two aluminium clad concert halls – the Philharmonie and the Chamber Music Hall – closely resemble Scharoun's Stadtkrone watercolors of 1919 and 1920. Lit at night, the golden roofs, alluding to the use of gold-painted façades in Prussian palaces, become beacons at the fulcrum of two major Berlin thoroughfares, the Potsdamer Strasse and the Leipziger Strasse. In earlier projects by Scharoun, the underlying composition of the circulation sequence, spaces, galleries and formal elements used in the Philharmonie can be seen as part of a distinct architectural conception that Scharoun was able develop in the years after World War II; this is distinct from the white architecture of the International Style to which Scharoun's earlier buildings had also adhered. 3 The first key project is the design for the Galerie Gerd Rosen (1948), the foremost Berlin gallery for modern art. 3 Arguably continuing from the compositional studies as seen in the Schminke House (1932-33), Scharoun introduces a number of stairs in the Galerie Gerd Rosen: one at the centre with a double flight of steps, as seen in a larger version on the western mezzanine gallery in the Philharmonie, with the effect of a mixer; and two at the short ends of the double height building.